David Benton wrote:On the Cardinal Facebook page, a lady described her trip , where a coach did indeed substitute for the business Class cafe. So it seems they do not have a spare Cafe car. Or possibly not a spare at both end terminals.

I suspect that putting the A1 dinette/BC back on #66/67 has shortened out the available spares pool for those cars.

I rode the Cardinal CHI-WAS a couple weeks ago, the BC was the A1 dinette (unused)/BC car. I connected to #66 at WAS and was pleasantly surprised to find the A1 dinette/BC was back as the BC car on that train. I think it went to the full 60-seat BC car perhaps 5-6 years ago. I figure as the full BC car was less than 20% of the rows occupied, they opted to put back the 18-seat 'split', with the lounge part open for business. The good news is the walk to the lounge was now 10 feet or so. The bad news, almost all the 18 BC seats were filled at Baltimore. I figured as much, and took a single seat when I got on at WAS. For sleeping, though, I'd prefer to have the full seat in a 60-seat BC to myself. The trip to BOS taught me something I've been thinking for some years...the older I get, overnight in coach gets progressively more difficult. I think I'll always book sleeper from now on.

Would anyone buy a business class ticket on Lufthansa knowing that sometimes when you get on the plane with a business class ticket you get a business class seat, but that sometimes when you get on the plane with a business class ticket you get a coach seat? And that Lufthansa randomly calls these two different products the same thing, with no explanation to the customer?

I've been thinking about this and my mind turns to "Business Class" on smaller airliners where the service standards and even seat sizes can vary substantially from the jumbo jets. I don't think Amtrak is that far off in this respect from their airline brethren

I have to wonder, though, what the logic is in keeping the baggage car on the rear behind the sleepers. I've always enjoyed looking out the rear window of whatever train I'm on. From pictures I've seen, it seems that all the eastern trains have the baggage cars on the rear lately. So much for aesthetics.

(actually, how recent? Doesn't the MBTA consider anything of less than a certain length or number of axles (corresponding to a locomotive and 4 coaches) to be under light engine rules. If that's the case maybe another baggage car gets added when 448/449 runs without a sleeper.)

leviramsey wrote:The only exception there, I believe, is 448/449, where the baggage is behind the locomotives, but the sleeper is then immediately behind the baggage.

448/449 has the baggage car in the front as the train is combined with the section from New York Penn at Albany. To keep the joining/separating as simple as possible, the Boston section locomotives are used all the way to Chicago. When the train arrives from New York, the dual-mode electrics are removed and the Boston section backed into the NY section.

I haven't checked lately, but I think the Empire Builder ease of Spokane WA has baggage cars front and rear as well after combining the SEA and PDX sections of the train. Or does the Portland section use a coach baggage car?

And so on? It seems easier to loop at Sunnyside than to wye at 14th St.

It takes a good chunk of cleaning crew time to physically turn the seats in all the coaches. Also, reversing direction in a Viewliner sleeper would result in people travelling 'head first' while sleeping in roomettes, which is generally disliked by the public, myself included. Putting ones' head next to the toilet to travel feet first is NOT an option! Hence, wyeing or looping on Amtrak is the norm, not the exception.

However, this past May, the Texas Eagle through cars from LA were not wyed at SAS which surprised me. They were first attached to #21 from the night before, then the entire train was wyed upon departure from SAS. I've ridden this train both ways several times in the past 10 years or so and never had that happen before.